Experts Extremely Split on Outcome of Pacers-Knicks Series

The Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks are very close on paper. They both have played better than their regular season records, and finished as close in the standings for a reason.

The only real edge either team has at the moment is that the Knicks have home-court advantage as the third seed in the East over the fourth-seeded Pacers.

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NBA experts are also split on how this series will go, with home-court advantage expected to play a role based on their final predictions.

In a recent The Athletic article put together by writers who cover each team, two of the three experts predicted the Knicks would win in seven games, while one predicted the Pacers would win in six.

Interestingly, the two writers who cover the Knicks, James L. Edwards III and Fred Katz, picked the Knicks, while the other writer who covers the Pacers, Shakeia Taylor, picked the Pacers, with each writer's winner pick closing out the series at home.

That is how marginal the series currently feels. If someone is biased at all towards either team, they believe the team will win. If they have seen more from either team, they believe the team will win.

While the writers couldn't unanimously agree on the outcome of the series, they could agree that the series will be a hard-fought battle where each team has unique strengths and weaknesses that will play out in this series.

The Pacers have a huge depth advantage, which could help them outlast the Knicks. That is evident in Taylor's x-factor for the Pacers being not just one player, but the entire bench. Both Edwards and Katz listed center Mitchell Robinson as the x-factor for the Knicks.

An interesting similarity between the two teams that is discussed in detail in the article is that both teams had to make huge comebacks in games to get to this point.

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It has been well-documented how the Knicks had to make huge comebacks against the Celtics in every game but the clincher, and the Pacers also had to make comebacks against the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round.

Both teams can't have comeback wins in any given game, so it will be interesting to see how each team's ability to fight when they have every right to give up will show in this series, and if either team, who is used to forcing opponents to blow a lead blows a lead themselves.

The series kicks off on Wednesday in what should be a fun series to watch for every NBA fan.

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For more news and notes on the Indiana Pacers, visit Indiana Pacers on SI.